MLB.com's Greg Johns blogs about the Mariners. You can also follow him on Twitter @gregjohnsmlb.

New infield turf going in at Safeco Field

Free agency doesn’t begin until after the World Series concludes and it’ll be until baseball’s Winter Meetings in Dallas in early December before things percolate too much, but the Mariners are digging up some dirt already in offseason plans.

The Safeco Field infield grass, as well as the grass in foul territory between home plate and the bases, will be removed in the coming days as a new playing surface will be installed for the first time since the park opened in 1999.

The project begins this Sunday, Oct. 23, and will take three to four days, according to the Mariners. Once the old grass is removed, the infield will be regraded and installation of the new turf is expected to begin on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The club says about 80-120 tons of grass and sand will be hauled away in the process, with about 20,000 square feet of 100-percent Kentucky bluegrass turf to be installed.

The turf is from Country Green Turf Farms of Olympia, the original supplier of the Safeco Field turf.

Recoup some of funding by selling to local landscapers by the truckload cheap(they’ll be hauling it away and save even more). BEST IDEA is to Call Pierce County’s Tagro program.They may well be able to incorporate all that sand/turf into their mix. Remember Go Green-Reuse-REcycle!

I was kinda hoping they were moving home plate 5 feet closer to center field… thereby reducing the size of the field overall. Moving the left field fence in from the foul pole out as far as the visitors bullpen would work also.

I’m told by the Mariners that because the old turf had compacted soil and root growth, they weren’t able to take it up in rolls that could be transplanted and used elsewhere. Instead, they had to chop it up into smaller, ragged pieces that will be recycled and composted by Cedar Grove Composting.

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